About the Viola Fair History of Music & Modern Recording

Peaceful Easy Feeling   Eagles   1973

Viola Fair is largely a lot of projects begun to abandonment with the exception of music histories. This is the About to the VF History of Music & Modern Recording also called Notes to the HMR Project also called Profiles with its own About and not begun until 2021 after Notes were finished in 2020. The VF History was begun in latter 2011 with a few music links on the Internet page, which then required their own pages, which then were realized to be historical, which then became the goal of writing a history of music and musicians issuing vinyl by 1980, which got scaled back to 1970 upon estimating that another decade across all genres would have taken at least two more years to finish.

One reason these histories were pursued was the discovery of so much at YouTube of amazing historical value, permitting biographies with audio samples. I then discovered that the majority of links to YouTube are unreliable for extensive periods of time, meaning an archival impasse of dead links which continues to plague since I don't download material from YouTube to serve from my own computer. A link check as early as 2013 returned so many dead that I wondered if I should pursue the histories at all, this as YouTube had begun to emphasize policing of material in violation of copyright. I persisted in hope that better focus on YouTube curators might assist in more permanent links while improving reference sources. Disappearing sources remain one of the major weaknesses in this project (alongside typos). In the meantime, the best place to find audio samples of all music is Internet Archive.

The general framework and content of the histories were finished in 2015, whence I began discographical research, notably sessionographical. The histories are indeed subject to discographical bias [see Crepon on Fitzgerald] insofar as they are largely based on sessionographies, thus their architecture and phrasing. These histories are necessarily shallow accounts of musical careers to which I wasn't present. A session-centric approach, however, owns something else I like a lot, being confirmable factual data. I try to keep content to the essential bones without fleshing out and dressing up in such as criticism, interpretation, matters of taste, et al. To what such as dates arrive can be fascinating history while at once to the point. Discography, however, can be as perilous as composition or performance data in classical music (which is verzeichnis-centric in VF). Discographies didn't begin to appear until around World War II, when after decades of recording on cylinders and discs some nosy hellraiser asked "Who's that on trombone?". One thing I've learned in the course of these histories is a firm appreciation of the enormous accomplishments of early discographers, an unenviable task which can be dauntingly frustrating even at this late date.

The VF history is intended to cover music and musicians of the Western Hemisphere up to those whose debut recordings, whether their own or backing somebody else's release, were issued by 1970. In nine books of about forty-seven chapters, those are classical music from medieval to modern composers born to 1950 (therefore publishing to roughly 1970), black gospel from first recordings to artists issuing by 1970, blues music from inception to 1970, country western music from inception to 1970, folk music including bluegrass from first recordings to 1970, jazz from early influences through swing and modern to 1970, Latin recording from inceptions in Spain, the Caribbean and South America to 1970, popular music including ragtime and film or television from inception (cylinder recordings) to 1970, and rock music from inceptions in boogie woogie and R&B to 1970. This history is otherwise weak in dance and music for stage or theatre such as vaudeville or Broadway.

Photographs of musicians were chosen according to a simple system to make them as random, thus as impartial, as possible. In classical one does as one can, for which reason I'm indebted to Nhu Thao at Discogs for invaluable assistance in identity verification. As for images, one huge source on the internet is Getty Images, not always acknowledged. Innumerable photos on this site are property of Getty, thus this blanket credit for all cases known or unknown.

Organization: At the top of each page artists are listed in alphabetical order. They are listed in a second table below that in chronological order by the year the artist is first found on disc (or cylinder). Chronological order stops there, reverting to alphabetical order per year. Classical, in which composers are listed by birth rather than initial issued recording, is the only book in which pages descend properly within given years.)

I've discovered most YouTube dates to be amazingly correct, considering the high number of them. My dates will nevertheless often differ from those at YouTube for any variety of reasons. A song, for example, that was released in 1957 and reissued, rather than rerecorded, on a 1961 album at YouTube will still receive a '57 date in the history. Howsoever, information at YouTube has often proven indispensible.

Some of the things considered when choosing videos for this history:

1. Sound quality. Which often can't be helped. Howsoever, maybe an original mono is listed along with a better sounding stereo version here and there, or an even better high quality remaster. Sometimes I've been lucky to find anything at all; sometimes there's so much that any list can't be but severely limited.

2. Information. Especially rare information like dates. In writing this particular sort of history I developed a prejudice toward videos showing scores or record labels. Clarification of quagmires always gets my attention, but lyrics can be of essence and I've selected videos for their collages.

4. How do you like my margins? Pretty clean, unlike most websites bloated with advertising, helping the internet to feel like a sea of piranha. Better some elegance than appear desperate to catch that rabbit. Albeit advertising at YouTube has made this history possible by making YouTube possible, all things in measure. As it is needful that people be able to use references with as little interference as possible, all else equal, I have favored channels which did the least advertising despite its importance. It often occurs that channels or websites which don't advertise at all are the better simply because they spend their time on the subject at hand rather than attempting to profit from it.

5. MP4 is the format to which I've tried to stick for reason of consistency throughout. AVIs are used only in compelling instances where MP4 isn't available. I've also pointed to Vimeo on occasion for what isn't available at YouTube.

6. Archival endurance: Though this history was begun in 2011 it went without intent until 2013. The mountain was there but I avoided climbing it because I was employed. Indeed, this website lacks such as drop-down menus because I had no intention to pursue it upon resurrecting the old abandoned website in 2010. It was just a vanity tack board with no idea of any history to come. Indeed, it almost didn't happen due that in 2013 YouTube began an intent campaign to remove material with copyright infringements. So many links went dead that I questioned the feasibility of using YouTube as an historical aid. Thus archival endurance is a major element in choosing links. Posts on some channels are intended to be temporary, so those I've attempted to avoid. Though getting censored for copyright doesn't occur so frequently as before, it yet does. Nor are all YouTube channels stable. People come and go or rearrange things. A band's label or management might decide of a moment that they don't want particular tracks to be available on YouTube. I've performed thorough link checks three times, requiring the reconstruction of nearly every profile three times. In some cases every YouTube source used in a profile entirely vanished in brief time, like, say, all twenty links. That was several years ago and faulty links continue to occur rather often. It has often seemed that the faster I make additions the faster they disappear, like the very next next day - it's happened. That is, I began this history because YouTube supplied the beef of musical samples, only to later ask "Where's the beef?" upon the YouTube part of some profiles getting entirely erased. My guess is that for every hundred YouTube entries I've made perhaps 90 of them will have disappeared in a few years. It's ten steps forward with ten links, then nine steps back for one that has glue. It's like a ball throw at a booth in a travelling carnival that's left town. The inability to keep things intact is a major problem when links are like chalk on a blackboard. Though initially amazed by what was at YouTube, by now I'm long since something overwhelmed by what was, but is no more. If one think into the future, say a decade, though most internet sources will have likely remained, YouTube sources are far less dependable. If one look fifty years, it's difficult to think that links even to All Music or Discogs would remain fast. Don't blink. Fifty years is nothing. Writing on the internet is writing in sand.

Though written according to facts independent of what is at YouTube, the VF history it is in some respects a kind of 'Best of YouTube'. Such as cylinder recordings made prior to the turn of the 20th century, for example, definitely rank in some sort of 'The Best of YouTube'. As well, this history is to some degree a musical rating system according to availability at YouTube. Popularity in general, however, is not the only element in choosing tracks at YouTube, since I attempt a broader scope within a short list. That this site is a loose sort of rating system is not my intent. But that happens upon pointing to one site a hundred times while to another only once, which may or may not indicate a better channel or website. Sometimes it's an obscure, peripheral or specializing source that is key. As in book indexing, terms used the most generally indicate what a book is about. But a term used only once can be of major significance.

References in the VF History are often condensed to numbers (: 1, 2, 3, . . .) to assist in readability, especially as I've jammed some pages to their limit to make profiles easier to find within a chronological procedure. These usually include:

Wikipedia. Regardless of faults, such as playing politics, et al, Wikipedia is verily of phenomenal significance as a reference site. Like any encyclopedia, information needs to be verified through other sources. It is otherwise a wealth of data from which I draw most heavily throughout. Another major reference for topics in general is the LOC (Library of Congress). I tend to use Encyclopedia more than Britannica. Musician Guide is a rich encyclopedic reference to bands and musicians. Suggested reading on music in general at grapewrath and Piero Scaruffi.

To get the bird's eye view of some band or musician I've almost always consulted All Music. God knows how many summaries I've read by such as Bill Dahl, Bruce Eder, Scott Yanow, Richie Unterberger, et al ad infinitum. Be careful with All Music. Look, but don't linger. All Music has experienced third party conflicts for as long as I can remember. As soon as they repair them they return again, meaning a memory hog or other conflicting issues that could freeze your device (another reason to use CCleaner). I can't imagine that they use WordPress but third parties, by the way, are a common problem with this particular website builder. Webhosts which push dangerous and so-called "free" WordPress are pushing a big-money conglomerate to which they belong, not a program which they even care to know to be a top website solution. Webhosts like these, which are the vast majority, don't give a damn about your security, your website or you. If they did they wouldn't be pushing WordPress. But billionaires don't have to care. For every sucker they lose they gain ten more. They know that propaganda is a far easier way to grab money than good customer relations which are the less required the fewer choices that people have. This is true in politics as well. Performance or honesty little matter when you can simply make things up and publish such everywhere, especially repeatedly. This succeeds in part due that no small portion of the population considers such acceptable: it's not how you play the game; it's power and winning that matter. Which isn't to put All Music in the same class with website hosts, politicians or the news media. They actually care about what they do there, being music, but for some reason have always had technical issues persisting off and on to this day. Not alone in this, Internet Archive stream pages (text only) and Henry König sessionographies can for some reason also be troublesome to use. Be as may, though not employed so much as All Music, All About Jazz also provides career summaries of jazz artists.

Discogs has been my major source of discographical information together with heavy use of 45worlds (shellac) and 45cat (vinyl). Though not major sources, Australian Charts (or one of its global mirrors), Rate Your Music and Second Hand Songs have been helpful on occasion along with Mike Callahan's Both Sides Now Publications. See also Classic Jazz Online. Major sessionographies include American Music (blues by Stefan Wirz) and DAHR (of ADP) consisting of early shellac in all genres researched at the University of California Santa Barbara.